First of all, you seem to accept tradition as readily as Scripture. The old belief that only “a woman of pleasure” would wash Jesus’ feet comes from the event in Luke 7 when a woman who was a sinner, did the same. That does not mean that any woman washing his feet in the future would be an equal sinner. It only means she would be showing her honor to someone revered. Given that the footwear of that time was sandals and the Roman roads were dusty, it became a habit for servants to assist visitors to wealthy homes in washing their feet. It also became a gesture of admiration and respect to be done by anyone other than a slave or servant. The humility shown by drying ones feet with their hair was to pay the ultimate homage. It had nothing to do with a “woman of pleasure.”

It is also in this portion of Luke that we first hear of Mary Magdalene and since the Wedding at Cana is found only in John, we cannot know the amount of time passing between these events. With the first mention of Mary Magdalene, however, it specifies that she had demons cast from her earlier. How much earlier, we don’t know. It is more than likely that the reference was not to actual demons but that Mary Magdalene had been a follower of Astarte where there were seven steps to the initiation and to remove her from that faith would have prompted this form of reference.

Yes, it is wholly possible that Mary Magdalene was the same Mary, sister of Martha. We can give some evidence to this by the suggestion that she was sitting shiva and responded only to the command of Jesus.

You have not answered, however, where it was stated that the adulteress was taken by Jesus to her home. And your timeline in no way prevents Jesus from being the groom.

right but with perfume could only meam a women of pleasure.

This claim is much like the others you still haven't provided evidence for.

Of course the Cathlic Church would say it was a fake. However, I'm not Catholic and my opinion is that the Catholic Church didn't include all of the books of the Bible in the first place so how can we trust them. It has been proven via the history channel that these were books that the Catholic Church didn't want the people to know anything about. Others hid the books that are already being found and dated to the time of Jesus. I believe that Jesus was married to Mary. She was his confidant in a lot of things that the other aposles (sorry, no spell check and watching a 4 year old) were not privy to. We have no idea really what happened during the time of Jesus because we were not there. However, the Papyrus that was found does date back to the time of Jesus. I'm just wondering why all the fuss. Does it really make a difference whether Jesus was married or not? The Catholic Church seems to think that it does, why? What do they not want us to know. Thank God, that I'm a spiritualist not relgious. Yes, I believe in God but I don't necessarliy believe everything in the Bible considering that it was written 300 years after the death of Jesus. That's like sitting down with a class of students and the teacher whispers something to one student and by the time that it goes around the class it's something completely different. So, my reasoning is, no one will ever know the truth until we die.

I am an agnostic, don't like atheist much, well some of them, they can be worse than any die in the wool believer.

Posted 01 October 2012 - 09:03 PM

4th century??????????? I doubt it is of any importance. Do you have any idea how long four centuries is? The gnostic gospels are probably more worthless that the christian scriputrues.....well maybe there is some true history in the NT....gnostic's....hmmmm most were brain dead and thought this life evil.....yeah brain dead. At least Xians believe life is good and not some kind of prison put here by some evil lesser god.

doug

If you must have finale absolute answers, then become an hard nosed atheist or a fundie of any religion, both seem to be black and white thinkers, and have only contempt for those who think differently.

I apologize for derailing the thread by this post but the Jesus/Horus comparison, unfounded as it is, keeps coming back.

It is still debatable whether the mention of Jesus in Josephus text is a later insertion or not. This has been discussed by others who are more knowledgeable than me on the subject. However, my comment was about the myth of Horus as mentioned in the link:

- Horus was conceived by the goddess Isis, not ‘Meri’ (meri simply means ‘beloved’, masc.; fem. Is meri(t) or meryt. Isis (Is.t or 3s.t –'She of the Throne')

-Isis was the archetypical wife and mother, never portrayed as a virgin, like all Egyptian goddesses. The concept of a correlation between the sacred and virginity is unattested in Egyptian religion

-Horus had no stepfather, Seb/Geb (earth god) was his grandfather, the father of Isis & Osiris

-He was not born in a cave, was born & hidden in the marshes of the Delta

-Sheep skin was considered ritually impure; no shepherds attended the birth of Horus

-Rite of passage is also absent, as is the attribution of an age to Horus during any phase of his legend

-Was never baptized and therefore no ‘baptizer’ was beheaded

-Had no ‘disciples’: the ‘sons of Horus’ were minor deities who guarded of the canopic jars . ‘Followers of Horus’ was a term used by the 19th dynasty Turin Royal Canon (king list) to describe predynastic rulers.

-Was called Horus, Horemakhet, Ra-Horakhty, Haroeris…not Iusa

-Horus waged battles against Seth, forces of chaos…but delivered no sermons, on mounts or elsewhere. Horus was a sky god, a cosmogonic deity, and a personification of divine kingship; a warrior god depicted slaying his enemies, no similarity with Jesus here. He was depicted as, and identified mainly with the hawk or falcon, a winged sun disc, rarely a ram; not lambs!

-Crucifixion was neither known nor practiced in Ancient Egypt. Horus as a god was immortal; every pharaoh was a personification of the Living Horus, as such he established Ma’at (cosmic order/justice), not a law given to man. He was never buried nor resurrected, it was his father Osiris who was resurrected by Isis.

- Among his titles was ‘the avenger of his father’, ‘Lord of the Two Lands’…not messiah, shepherd, son of man, the way, or lamb of god.